Announcing the Minneapolis Mayoral Forum on the Future of Transportation

These days, you can just about pick any streetcorner in Minneapolis, throw a rock, and hit a Mayoral Forum. There are forums on beer, on placemaking, on architecture, on housing… (and those are just the ones that vaguely interest me).

In two weeks, on TuesdayOctober 15th at 7:00 pm, we’re joining with the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, our friends at UrbanMSP, and a few University of Minnesota groups (including the Interdisciplinary Transportation Student Organization and the Minnesota Urban Studies Students Association) to host a forum of our own. And this time, it’ll be focused (like the radar gun of a cop perched at the speed trap on the Hennepin Avenue Bridge) on one issue: the Future of Transportation. [CUE DRAMATIC MUSIC, VISUAL EFFECTS].

What will Minneapolis’ transportation priorities be in five years? Ten years? The next mayor will play a big role in answering that question, and that’s why this forum might be important.

This is perhaps a good time to ask you, the readers of Streets.mn, what you’re looking for in a mayoral forum. What kinds of questions are best? What format is most interesting to you? On what issues would you like clear answers?

Leave questions and answers in the comments! Mark your calendars. RSVP on Facebook.

PRESS RELEASE – UPCOMING MPLS MAYORAL FORUM ON TRANSPORTATION

There will be a Mayoral Forum on the Future of Transportation in Minneapolis at 7:00pm on Tuesday, Oct. 15, in the Cowles Auditorium at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. The event is sponsored by the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, Streets.mn, Interdisciplinary Transportation Student Organization, Minnesota Urban Studies Student Association, UrbanMSP, and the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability.

The topic of the forum is the future of transportation in Minneapolis. The next mayor will play a key role in the future of our city, and transportation will be a vitally important issue. What will the next mayor’s positions be on supporting all modes of transportation? How can we accelerate transit ridership? How can we move Minneapolis toward sustainable active lifestyles?

We hope the event will give the mayoral candidates a chance to get their views on the table. Four years from now, how will they have made it easier to move around Minneapolis?

We hope you can attend and make your voice heard about the future of transportation in Minneapolis.The forum will be moderated by Paula Pentel, coordinator of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Minnesota.

You can submit your questions for the forum via websites of the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, Streets.mn, UrbanMSP, or Facebook.

I likely cannot attend, but would like this question to be raised at the forum:

The East-West Transit Spine through downtown, proposed as part of the Access Minneapolis plan in 2010, was never formally approved or implemented by the city council. This is an important issue for City residents, as east-west transit routes through downtown serve primarily Minneapolis residents from the north and south sides (unlike the improved bus corridor on Marquette and 2nd that primarily serves suburban commuters). East-west bike routes are also underrepresented in downtown.

Will you take leadership in returning to the Access Minneapolis plan recommendations to serve east-west downtown routes and the City residents and voters who use them? How else will you lead the City in improving transportation options to the heart of downtown for City residents?

Question 1:
You have all promoted increasing density along transit corridors. This strategy will work only if current and future Minneapolitans shift from driving to other more density-friendly ways of getting around. I’m often told “I have no choice, I have to drive” when people hear that I mostly don’t. Here are a couple of their examples:

It takes 40 minutes to get from Uptown to Downtown on a bus!
I stopped biking to work in Downtown since the bike lanes were taken off Marquette and 2nd, because I’m scared to ride in the traffic.

What will you do to make transit, biking, etc. more convenient and appealing than driving?

Question 2:
Thanks in part to RT’s support, the City of Minneapolis has greatly expanded our network of bike facilities in the last few years. However, few of those facilities go to the destinations that people want to get to — shops and restaurants and other establishments that are located on major streets like Hennepin Avenue (on either side of downtown), or Minnehaha, or Broadway. What steps will you take to connect people riding bikes those last few blocks from friendly facilities to destinations?